24. In terms of hourly wage by gender and employment type, in March 2016, male
workers received 16,055 won per hour while female workers received 10,512 won,
regular workers receiving 16,985 won, and irregular workers receiving 9,291 won.
Supposing that male regular workers receive 100, male irregular workers received
its 55.5%, female regular workers 69.5%, and female irregular workers 43.2%
respectively.
25. Wage gap by gender and employment type is closely related to the career break
among women. Women exit the labor market at the time of marriage, pregnancy
and childbirth and take a lower-level job considering their career, academic
background and competency when returning to the market. Since there has
been a vacuum in their economic activities for a certain period, it is hard for
them to be recognized for the past career or competence which results in taking
a lower-paying job in the end. Career breaks decrease the level of female
employment for the short term and have a negative impact on women’s position
in the labor market and their economic achievement for the long term.
26. Since the reasons behind the gender wage gap are diverse and structurally
intertwined, a comprehensive approach to the institutional improvement is
required by integrating with other laws to narrow the gender gap such as
turning irregular jobs into regular ones, raise in the minimum wage,
improvement in the situation of categorizing job types based on gender and
breaking of glass ceiling. Therefore, aggressive measures are required at the
ministry level such as the “establishment of five-year plan to narrow the gender
wage gap” based on a short-term roadmap. The Government announced that it
would implement the “Wage Public Notification system for Gender Equality” in
the second Basic Plan for Gender Equality which will be carried out starting 2018.
Institutional measures are needed to identify and improve the gender wage gap
reality among companies through public notification of wages for men and
women at public and private corporations by revising the Equal Employment
Opportunity and Work-Family Balance Assistance Act.
[7] Reinforcement of Punishment for Domestic Violence Crimes (List of Issues 8, 9)